In all fairness to you, I have to say that there are communities of color, and there are communities of color. I'm sure you Chicago folks are aware of the "race question," but I dare say that D.C. is the only place in the world where you aren't just "aware" of the race question; the race question gets right up and bites you on the ass each and everyday. This is, after all, a city where about 60% of the people are African-American yet ALL of them are denied the right to elected representation in the Federal government. Nowhere else in the country does the racist power structure exercise so much control over people of color.
- Alex L.
P.S. None of this is to say that the A16 collective adequately addressed this problem.
------Original Message------ From: JKSCHW at aol.com To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: June 20, 2000 9:49:54 PM GMT Subject: Re: Where was the Color at A16 in D.C.?
I am glad you understand "people of color" so well because you live in DC. Course we in Chicago wouldn't know about that. I am sorry you find my generalization that most "people of color" are working people with family concerns to be offensive. Is that because any geberalization about "people of color" is offensive? Yeah, my info about A16 comes from the news and the net, what did you think?
In a message dated Tue, 20 Jun 2000 12:24:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Chuck0 <chuck at tao.ca> writes:
<< JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
>
> Apparently Chuck sees no difference between liberal democracy, majority
rule, representative organization with free speech and competitive
elections, and Stalinist terror. Lord spare us from anarchochildishness.
Chuck, have you ever given any thought to the idea that "people of color"
are typically working people and may have been incapacited from
participating in endless consensus-based no-leader structures for the raeson
that other working parents would be incapacitated from doing that? Yeah, I
think it's fair to slam A16 for being white, and I would add, student based
and middle class. --jks
On what evidence do you base your slam of A16? Surveys? What newspaper pundits wrote?
I have no idea who you are, but your patronizing attitude towards my opinions is making you look bad. I have a pretty good understanding of the day to day lives of people of color. After all, I commute with many of them here in D.C. and live in the same community as them. One thing I've learned from living here is that only a fool would make generalizations about people of color, because they are a diverse bunch, even within their own cultures.
I also wasn't aware that short meetings were the hallmark of non-consensus-based social movements. I've certainly been to more than a few marathin meetings where voting was used or there were leaders.
The problem here is a lack of sensitivity to the needs of working class people (regardless of color) by young white activists
<< Chuck0 >>
This was the year *everything* changed. -- Commander Ivanova, 2261
Mid-Atlantic Infoshop -> http://www.infoshop.org/ Alternative Press Review -> http://www.altpr.org/ Practical Anarchy Online -> http://www.practicalanarchy.org/
Homepage -> http://flag.blackened.net/chuck0/home/
"A society is a healthy society only to the degree
that it exhibits anarchistic traits."
- Jens Bjørneboe
>>
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